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Thursday, March 29, 2018

Here are some images of Arsenal Models/ Scratch Build 1/1 scale model of the HAL 9000 Computer face plate from the movie 2001 a space odyssey.
The one problem I found with the Arsenal kit is that it was more in line with the HAL 9000 face plate from 2010 odyssey 2 including the label. I want the one from 2001.
So using the extensive information provided by AP 333 on the RPF web site I was able to recreate a HAL 9000 more in keeping with 2001. It's not perfect due to the confines of the kit, but it's close.
The stand I got from the Revell Fock Wulf 190 kit. I also installed a cheap sound card as well, but as can be expected if you buy a cheap sound card the sound you get back is not very good.

HAL became operational in Urbana, Illinois, at the HAL Plant (the University of Illinois' Coordinated Science Laboratory, where the ILLIAC computers were built). The film says this occurred in 1992, while the book gives 1997 as HAL's birth year.In 2001: A Space Odyssey,
HAL is initially considered a dependable member of the crew,
maintaining ship functions and engaging genially with its human
crew-mates on an equal footing. As a recreational activity, Frank Poole plays against HAL in a game of chess.
In the film the artificial intelligence is shown to triumph easily.
However, as time progresses, HAL begins to malfunction in subtle ways
and, as a result, the decision is made to shut down HAL in order to
prevent more serious malfunctions. The sequence of events and manner in
which HAL is shut down differs between the novel and film versions of
the story. In the aforementioned game of chess HAL makes minor and
undetected mistakes in his analysis, a possible foreshadowing to HAL's
malfunctioning.In the film, astronauts David Bowman and Frank Poole consider disconnecting HAL's cognitive
circuits when he appears to be mistaken in reporting the presence of a
fault in the spacecraft's communications antenna. They attempt to
conceal what they are saying, but are unaware that HAL can read their lips.
Faced with the prospect of disconnection, HAL decides to kill the
astronauts in order to protect and continue its programmed directives,
and to conceal its malfunction from Earth. HAL uses one of the
Discovery's EVA pods to kill Poole while he is repairing the ship. When
Bowman uses another pod to attempt to rescue Poole, HAL locks him out of
the ship, then disconnects the life support systems of the other
hibernating crew members. Bowman circumvents HAL's control, entering the
ship by manually opening an emergency airlock with his service pod's
clamps, detaching the pod door via its explosive bolts. Bowman jumps
across empty space, reenters Discovery, and quickly re-pressurizes the
airlock.The novel explains that HAL is unable to resolve a conflict between
his general mission to relay information accurately, and orders specific
to the mission requiring that he withhold from Bowman and Poole the
true purpose of the mission. (This withholding is considered essential
after the findings of a psychological experiment, "Project Barsoom", where humans were made to believe that there had been alien contact. In every person tested, a deep-seated xenophobia was revealed, which was unknowingly replicated in HAL's constructed personality. Mission Control did not want the crew of Discovery
to have their thinking compromised by the knowledge that alien contact
was already real.) With the crew dead, HAL reasons, he would not need to
lie to them.In the novel, the orders to disconnect HAL come from Dave and Frank's
superiors on Earth. After Frank is killed while attempting to repair
the communications antenna he is pulled away into deep space using the
safety tether which is still attached to both the pod and Frank Poole's
spacesuit. Dave begins to revive his hibernating crew mates, but is
foiled when HAL vents the ship's atmosphere into the vacuum of space,
killing the awakening crew members and almost killing Bowman, who is
only narrowly saved when he finds his way to an emergency chamber which
has its own oxygen supply and a spare space suit inside.In both versions, Bowman then proceeds to shut down the machine. In
the film, HAL's central core is depicted as a crawlspace full of
brightly lit computer modules mounted in arrays from which they can be
inserted or removed. Bowman shuts down HAL by removing modules from
service one by one; as he does so, HAL's consciousness degrades. HAL
reverts to material that was programmed into him early in his memory,
including announcing the date he became operational as 12 January 1992
(in the novel, 1997). When HAL's logic is completely gone, he begins
singing the song "Daisy Bell" (in actuality, the first song sung by a computer).
HAL's final act of any significance is to prematurely play a
prerecorded message from Mission Control which reveals the true reasons
for the mission to Jupiter.

Clarke noted that the film 2001 was criticized for not having
any characters, except for HAL and that a great deal of the establishing
story on Earth was cut from the film (and even from Clarke's novel). Early drafts of Clarke's story called the computer Socrates (a preferred name to Autonomous Mobile Explorer–5), with another draft giving the computer a female personality called Athena. This name was later used in Clarke and Stephen Baxter's A Time Odyssey novel series.The earliest draft depicted Socrates as a roughly humanoid robot, and is introduced as overseeing Project Morpheus, which studied prolonged hibernation in preparation for long term space flight. As a demonstration to Senator
Floyd, Socrates' designer, Dr. Bruno Forster, asks Socrates to turn off
the oxygen to hibernating subjects Kaminski and Whitehead, which
Socrates refuses, citing Asimov'sFirst Law of Robotics.In a later version, in which Bowman and Whitehead are the
non-hibernating crew of Discovery, Whitehead dies outside the spacecraft
after his pod collides with the main antenna, tearing it free. This
triggers the need for Bowman to revive Poole, but the revival does not
go according to plan, and after briefly awakening, Poole dies. The
computer, now named Athena, announces "All systems of Poole now No–Go. It will be necessary to replace him with a spare unit."
After this, Bowman decides to go out in a pod and retrieve the antenna,
which is moving away from the ship. Athena refuses to allow him to
leave the ship, citing "Directive 15" which prevents it from being left
unattended, forcing him to make program modifications during which time
the antenna drifts further.During rehearsals Kubrick asked Stefanie Powers
to supply the voice of HAL 9000 while searching for a suitably
androgynous voice so the actors had something to react to. On the set,
British actor Nigel Davenport played HAL. When it came to dubbing HAL in post-production, Kubrick had originally cast Martin Balsam, but as he felt Balsam "just sounded a little bit too colloquially American", he was replaced with Douglas Rain, who "had the kind of bland mid-Atlantic accent we felt was right for the part." Rain was only handed HAL's lines instead of the full script, and recorded them across a day and a half.HAL's point of view shots were created with a Cinerama 160-degree Fairchild-Curtis wide-angle lens. This lens is about 8 inches (20 cm) in diameter, while HAL's prop eye lens is about 3 inches (7.6 cm) in diameter. Stanley Kubrick chose to use the large Fairchild-Curtis lens to shoot the HAL 9000 POV shots because he needed a wide-angle fisheye lens
that would fit onto his shooting camera, and this was the only lens at
the time that would work. The HAL 9000 face plate, without lens, was
discovered in a junk shop in Paddington, London, in the early 1970s by
Chris Randall. Research revealed that the original lens was a Nikon Nikkor 8mm F8.
This was found along with the key to HAL's Brain Room. Both items were
purchased for ten shillings (£0.50). The collection was sold at a
Christies auction in 2010 for £17,500 to film director Peter Jackson.HAL's name, according to writer Arthur C. Clarke, is derived from Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer. After the film was released fans noticed HAL was a one-letter shift from the name IBM and there has been much speculation since that this was a dig at the large computer company, something that has been denied by both Clarke and 2001 director Stanley Kubrick. Clarke addressed the issue in his book The Lost Worlds of 2001:

...about once a week some character spots the fact that HAL is one
letter ahead of IBM, and promptly assumes that Stanley and I were taking
a crack at the estimable institution ... As it happened, IBM had given
us a good deal of help, so we were quite embarrassed by this, and would
have changed the name had we spotted the coincidence.

IBM was consulted during the making of the film and their logo can be seen on props in the film including Pan Am Clipper's
cockpit instrument panel and on the lower arm keypad on Poole's space
suit. During production it was brought to IBM's attention that the
film's plot included a homicidal computer but they approved association
with the film if it was clear any "equipment failure" was not related to
their products.

Thursday, March 22, 2018

Here are some more images of Hasegawa's 1/16 scale Sopwith Camel F.1 frame model.
Just doing some more experiments with dark backgrounds. I find them to be more difficult to work with than white backgrounds but they give a warmer feel to the pictures I think.

From Wikipedia"The Sopwith Camel was a British First World War single-seat biplanefighter introduced on the Western Front in 1917. Manufactured by Sopwith Aviation Company, it had a short-coupled fuselage, heavy, powerful rotary engine, and concentrated fire from twin synchronized
machine guns. Though difficult to handle, to an experienced pilot it
provided unmatched manoeuvrability. A superlative fighter, the Camel was
credited with shooting down 1,294 enemy aircraft, more than any other
Allied fighter of the war. It also served as a ground-attack aircraft,
especially near the end of the conflict, when it was outclassed in the
air-to-air role by newer fighters.ntended as a replacement for the Sopwith Pup, the Camel prototype was first flown by Harry Hawker at Brooklands
on 22 December 1916, powered by a 110 hp Clerget 9Z. Known as the "Big
Pup" early on in its development, the biplane design was structurally
conventional for its time, featuring a box-like fuselage structure, an
aluminium engine cowling, plywood-covered panels around the cockpit, and
fabric-covered fuselage, wings and tail. For the first time on an
operational British-designed fighter, two .303 in (7.7 mm) Vickersmachine guns were mounted directly in front of the cockpit, firing forward through the propeller disc with synchronisation gear. A metal fairing over the gun breeches, intended to protect the guns from freezing at altitude, created a "hump" that led to the name Camel. The bottom wing was rigged with 3° dihedral
but the top wing had no dihedral, so that the gap between the wings was
less at the tips than at the roots. This was done at the suggestion of
Fred Sigrist, the Sopwith works manager, in order to simplify
construction. Approximately 5,490 Camels were built.Unlike the preceding Pup and Triplane,
the Camel was generally considered difficult to fly. The type owed its
extreme manoeuvrability and its difficult handling to the close
placement of the engine, pilot, guns and fuel tank (some 90% of the
weight of the aircraft) within the front seven feet of the aircraft,
coupled with the strong gyroscopic effect of the rotary engine. The Camel soon gained an unfortunate reputation with student pilots. The Clerget
engine was particularly sensitive to fuel mixture control and incorrect
settings often caused the engine to choke and cut out during take-off.
Many crashed due to mishandling on take-off when a full fuel tank
affected the centre of gravity. In level flight, the Camel was markedly
tail-heavy. Unlike the Sopwith Triplane, the Camel lacked a variable
incidence tailplane, so that the pilot had to apply constant forward
pressure on the control stick to maintain a level attitude at low
altitude. The aircraft could also be rigged so that at higher altitudes
it was able to be flown "hands off." A stall immediately resulted in a
particularly dangerous spin.

The type entered squadron service in June 1917 with No. 4 Squadron of the Royal Naval Air Service, near Dunkirk. The following month, it became operational with No. 70 Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps. By February 1918, 13 squadrons were fully equipped with the Camel.The Camel proved to have a good margin of superiority over the Albatros D.III and D.V
and offered heavier armament and better performance than the Pup and
Triplane. In the hands of an experienced pilot, its manoeuvrability was
unmatched by any contemporary type. Its controls were light and
sensitive. The Camel turned rather slowly to the left, which resulted in
a nose up attitude due to the torque of the rotary engine. But the
engine torque also resulted in the ability to turn to the right in half
the time of other fighters,
although that resulted in more of a tendency towards a nose down
attitude from the turn. Because of the faster turning capability to the
right, to change heading 90° to the left, many pilots preferred to do it
by turning 270° to the right.Agility in combat made the Camel one of the best-remembered Allied aircraft of the First World War. RFC crew used to joke that it offered the choice between "a wooden cross, the Red Cross, or a Victoria Cross" Together with the S.E.5a and the SPAD S.XIII, the Camel helped to establish the Allied aerial superiority that lasted well into 1918.Major William Barker's Sopwith Camel (serial no. B6313, the aircraft in which he scored the majority of his victories,)
became the most successful fighter aircraft in the history of the RAF,
shooting down 46 aircraft and balloons from September 1917 to September
1918 in 404 operational hours flying. It was dismantled in October 1918.
Barker kept the dashboard watch as a memento, but was asked to return
it the following day. An important role for the Camel was home defence. The RNAS flew a number of Camels from Eastchurch and Manston airfields against daylight raids by German Gotha
bombers from July 1917. The public outcry against these raids and the
poor response of London's defences resulted in the RFC diverting Camel
deliveries from France to home defence, with 44 Squadron RFC reforming on the Camel in the home defence role in July 1917.
When the Germans switched to night attacks, the Camel proved capable of
being safely flown at night, and the home defence aircraft were
modified with navigation lights to serve as night fighters. A number of
Camels were more extensively modified as night fighters, with the
Vickers machine guns being replaced by overwing Lewis guns,
with the cockpit being moved rearwards so the pilot could easily reload
the guns. This modification, which became known as the "Sopwith Comic"
allowed the guns to be fired without affecting the night vision of the
pilots, and allowed the use of new and more effective incendiary
ammunition that was considered unsafe to fire from synchronised Vickers
guns.
By March 1918, the home defence squadrons were equipped with the Camel,
with seven home defence squadrons flying Camels by August 1918. Camels were also used as night fighters over the Western Front, with 151 Squadron
intercepting German night raids over the front, and carrying out night
intruder missions against German airstrips, claiming 26 German aircraft
shot down in five months of operations.

By mid-1918, the Camel was becoming limited, especially as a day
fighter, by its slow speed and comparatively poor performance at
altitudes over 12,000 ft (3,650 m). However, it remained useful as a
ground-attack and infantry support aircraft. During the German offensive
of March 1918, flights of Camels harassed the advancing German Army,
inflicting high losses (and suffering high losses in turn) through the
dropping of 25 lb (11 kg) Cooper bombs and ultra-low-level strafing. The
protracted development of the Camel's replacement, the Sopwith Snipe, meant that the Camel remained in service until the Armistice.In summer 1918, a 2F.1 Camel (N6814) was used in trials as a parasite fighter under AirshipR23

This spaceship is founded on solidly conceived, yet unrealized
science. One major concession in its appearance, for the purpose of
reducing confusion, was to eliminate the huge cooling "wings" which
would be needed to radiate the heat produced by its hypothetical thermonuclear propulsion system. The movie's producer/director Stanley Kubrick thought that the audience might interpret the wings as meaning that the spacecraft was intended to fly through an atmosphere.The Discovery One was named after Captain Robert Scott's sailing ship RRS Discovery, which was launched in 1901. Writer Arthur C. Clarke used to visit this ship when it was moored in London. It shares its name with a real spacecraft, the Space Shuttle orbiterDiscovery (OV-103).

In the novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Discovery One is described as being about 460 feet (140 meters) long (the 2010
movie mentions 800 feet) and powered by a nuclear plasma drive,
separated by 275 feet (84 m) of tankage and structure, from the
spherical part of the spaceship where the crew quarters, the computer,
flight controls, small auxiliary craft, and instrumentation are located.
In the crew's centrifuge, the crewmen would have enjoyed Moon-like gravitational conditions. This would be where they spend most of their time, and where the three hibernatingastronauts rested in their compartments. The piloting, navigation, and other occasional tasks could take place in the zero-gravity command module.Other sections of the crewmen's sphere would include the pod bay,
where three one-man repair and inspection craft would be kept, and the
spaceship's primary HAL 9000 mainframe computer with its level-upon-level of memory storage and digital processing units. Because of the lack of aerodynamic design and its immense size, the Discovery One would be assembled in and launched from orbit. As described in the novel, the Discovery One was originally intended to survey the Jovian system, but its mission was changed to go to Saturn and investigate the destination of the signal from the black monolith at the crater Tycho. As a result, the mission became a one-way trip to Saturn and its moon Iapetus. After investigating alien artifacts at Saturn and Iapetus, the preliminary plan is for all five members of the crew to enter suspended animation for an indefinite period of time. Eventually, it was hoped that a much larger and more powerful Discovery Two would be built that could make it to Iapetus and return with everyone in hibernation. The ship's centrifuge was a spinning band of deck, mounted inside the crew compartment, that used centrifugal force
to simulate the effects of gravity. It was the primary living and work
area, featuring consoles, panels, screens, and devices. In the movie,
there was Earth gravity in the centrifuge. All other points on the ship,
including the command bridge, were micro-g environments where the crew members used Velcro shoes to attach themselves to the floor. There was an automated kitchen developed with the assistance of General Mills;
a ship-to-Earth communications center; and a complete medical section
where the astronauts underwent regular automated checkups with results
and any diagnosis of deficiencies dislayed directly on a readout screen. The Discovery is described as a very large ship that could be handled by only two astronauts (David Bowman and Frank Poole), along with the HAL 9000. In the book IBM predicted that computer development would have advanced to such an extent that the mission could be undertaken with all the astronauts placed in hibernation. It was said to be desired, however, that regular communications be maintained throughout the voyage between the pilot and copilot and mission control back on Earth. During communication, account was taken of the elapsed time for electromagnetic waves crossing space between the spaceship and the Earth. For example, Poole is depicted watching a prerecorded birthday message from his family, rather than interacting with them in real time. Such a conversation is not possible because messages take over 30 minutes to transmit between Jupiter and Earth. Naturally, this time would depend on the relative positions of the bodies in the Solar System at any given moment.After the malfunction of HAL, Bowman deactivated the computer, thus effectively isolating himself on board the Discovery.
In the movie, when the spacecraft arrives at Jupiter, it encounters
TMA-1's considerably larger 'Big Brother', 'TMA-2', at the Jupiter/IoL1 point. The novel is basically the same with Discovery in orbit around Saturn's moon Iapetus instead. In both versions Bowman leaves Discovery to examine the monolith and is taken inside it.The novel and movie 2010: Odyssey Two follows the 2001: A Space Odyssey movie ending rather than the novel.After finding out that Discovery's orbit is failing, a joint Soviet-US mission (including Heywood Floyd) travels to Jupiter aboard the spacecraft Alexei Leonov to intercept and board Discovery believing that it harbours many of the answers to the mysteries surrounding the 2001 mission. Leonov docks with Discovery,
reactivates the on-board systems, and stabilizes its orbit. Hal's
creator, Dr. Chandra, is sent to reactivate the HAL 9000 computer and
gather any data he can regarding the previous mission.Later on, an apparition of Dave Bowman appears, warning Floyd that Leonov
must leave Jupiter within two days. Floyd asks what will happen at that
time, and Bowman replies, 'Something wonderful'. Floyd has difficulty
convincing the rest of the crew, at first, but a dark spot on Jupiter
begins to form and starts growing. HAL's telescope reveals that the
“Great Black Spot” is in fact a vast population of monoliths increasing
at a geometric rate. (The film accelerates the pace from the novel, both
shortening Bowman's deadline from fifteen days, and making the spot
grow faster.)Initially it was planned to inject Discovery on an Earth-bound trajectory (though it would not arrive for some years); however, when faced with Bowman's warning, the Leonov crew devises a plan to use Discovery as a 'booster rocket', enabling them to return to Earth ahead of schedule, but leaving Discovery in a elliptical orbit of Jupiter. The crew worries that Hal will have the same neuroses on discovering that he will be abandoned, and Chandra convinces HAL that the human crew is in danger and must leave.After detaching itself from Discovery, Leonov makes a
hasty exit from the Jupiter system, just in time to witness the
Monoliths engulf Jupiter. Through a mechanism that the novel only
partially explains, these monoliths increase Jupiter's density until the
planet achieves nuclear fusion, becoming a small star.As Leonov leaves Jupiter, Bowman instructs HAL to begin repeatedly broadcasting the message:

ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE.

The movie version, as part of its heightened Cold War emphasis, adds the words:

USE THEM TOGETHER. USE THEM IN PEACE.

The new star, which Earth eventually dubs "Lucifer", destroys Discovery. HAL is transformed into the same kind of entity as David Bowman and becomes Bowman's companion.

Saturday, March 10, 2018

Here are some more images of Trumpeter's 1/32 scale English Electric F.3 Lightning.
I'm just doing some more experimenting with black backgrounds. I find silver coloured aircraft tends to show up better with a dark background.

From Wikipedia"The English Electric Lightning is a supersonic jet fighter aircraft of the Cold War
era, noted for its great speed. It is the only all-British Mach 2
fighter aircraft and was the first aircraft in the world capable of supercruise.
The Lightning was renowned for its capabilities as an interceptor;
pilots commonly described it as "being saddled to a skyrocket". Following English Electric's integration into the unified British Aircraft Corporation, the aircraft was marketed as the BAC Lightning.The Lightning was prominently used by the Royal Air Force RAF and the Royal Saudi Air Force. The aircraft was a regular performer at airshows, it is one of the highest-performance aircraft ever used in formation aerobatics.[citation needed]
Following retirement in the late 1980s, many of the remaining aircraft
became museum exhibits; until 2010, three examples were kept flying at "Thunder City" in Cape Town, South Africa. In September 2008, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers conferred on the Lightning its "Engineering Heritage Award" at a ceremony at BAE Systems' site at Warton Aerodrome.The first operational Lightning, designated the F.1,
was designed as a point defence interceptor to defend mainland Britain
from bomber attack. To best perform this intercept mission, emphasis was
placed on rate-of-climb, acceleration, and speed, rather than range and
combat endurance.
It was equipped with two 30 mm ADEN cannon in front of the cockpit
windscreen and an interchangeable fuselage weapon pack containing either
an additional two ADEN cannon, 48, two inch air-to-air rockets, or two de Havilland Firestreakair-to-air missiles, a heavy fit optimized for attack of large aircraft. The Ferranti AI.23 radar (immediate predecessor of the AI.24 Foxhunter)
supported autonomous search, automatic target tracking, and ranging for
all weapons, while the pilot attack sight provided gyroscopically
derived lead angle and backup stadiametric ranging for gun firing. The radar and gunsight were collectively designated the AIRPASS: Airborne Interception Radar and Pilot Attack Sight System.The next two Lightning variants, the F.1A and F.2, saw steady but relatively minor refinement of the basic design, and the next variant, the F.3, was a major departure. The F.3
had higher thrust Avon 301R engines, a larger, squared-off fin and
strengthened intake bullet allowing a service clearance to Mach 2.0 (the
F.1, F.1A and F.2 were limited to Mach 1.7),
the A.I.23B radar and Red Top missile offering a limited forward
hemisphere attack capability—and most notoriously—deletion of the nose
cannon. The new engines and fin made the F.3 the highest performance
Lightning yet, but with an even higher fuel consumption and resulting
shorter range. The next variant, the F.6, was already in development, but there was a need for an interim solution to partially address the F.3’s shortcomings. The F.3A was that interim solution.The F.3A introduced two improvements: a new, non-jettisonable, 610 gal (2,770 l) ventral fuel tank,
and a new, kinked, conically cambered wing leading edge, incorporating a
slightly larger leading edge fuel tank, raising the total usable
internal fuel to 716 gal (3,250 l). The conically cambered wing
noticeably improved maneuverability, especially at higher altitudes, and
the ventral tank nearly doubled available fuel. The increased fuel was
very welcome, but the lack of cannon armament was felt to be a
deficiency. It was thought that cannon were desirable to fire warning
shots in the intercept mission.The F.6 was the ultimate Lightning version to see British service.
Originally, it was nearly identical to the F.3A with the exception that
it had provisions to carry 260 gal (1,180 l) ferry tanks on pylons
over the wings. These tanks were jettisonable in an emergency, and gave
the F.6 a substantially improved deployment capability. There remained
one glaring shortcoming: the lack of cannon. This was finally rectified
in the form of a modified ventral tank with two ADEN cannon mounted in
the front. The addition of the cannon and their ammunition decreased the
tank's fuel capacity from 610 gal to 535 gal (2,430 l), but the cannon
made the F.6 a “real fighter” again.The final British Lightning was the F.2A. This was an F.2
upgraded with the cambered wing, the squared fin, and the 610 gal
ventral. The F.2A retained the A.I.23 and Firestreak missile, the nose
cannon, and the earlier Avon 211R engines.
Although the F.2A lacked the thrust of the later Lightnings, it had the
longest tactical range of all Lightning variants, and was used for
low-altitude interception over Germany.There were several unique and distinctive features in the design of
the Lightning; principally the use of stacked and staggered engines, a
notched delta wing,
and a low-mounted tailplane. The vertically stacked, longitudinally
staggered engines was the solution devised by Petter to the conflicting
requirements of minimizing frontal area, providing undisturbed engine
airflow across a wide speed range, and packaging two engines to provide
sufficient thrust to meet performance goals. The configuration allowed
the twin engines to be fed by a single nose inlet, with the flow split
vertically aft of the cockpit, and the nozzles tightly stacked,
effectively tucking one engine behind the cockpit. The result was a low
frontal area, an efficient inlet, and excellent single-engine handling.
Unfortunately, this stacked configuration led to complicated maintenance
procedure, and the recurring problem of fluid leakage from the upper
engine being a fire hazard.

The fuselage was tightly packed, leaving no room for fuel tankage or
main landing gear. While the notched delta wing lacked the volume of a
standard delta wing, each wing contained a fairly conventional
three-section main fuel tank and leading-edge tank, holding 312 imp gal
(1,420 l); the wing flap also contained a 33 imp gal (150 l) fuel tank and an additional 5 imp gal (23 l) was contained in a fuel recuperator,
bringing the aircraft's total internal fuel capacity to 700 imp gal
(3,200 l). The main landing gear was sandwiched outboard of the main
tanks and aft of the leading edge tanks, with the flap fuel tanks
behind.
The long main gear legs retracted toward the wingtip, necessitating an
exceptionally thin main tyre inflated to the high pressure of
330–350 psi (23–24 bar).A conformal ventral store was added to the design to house, alternatively, a fuel tank or a rocket engine. The rocket engine, a Napier Double Scorpion motor, also contained a reserve of 200 imp gal (910 l) of high-test peroxide
(HTP) to drive the rocket’s turbopump and act as an oxidizer. Fuel for
the rocket would have been drawn from the Lightning’s internal tankage.
The rocket engine was intended to boost the Lightning’s performance
against a supersonic, high altitude bomber threat, but this threat never
emerged, thus the Lightning’s basic performance was deemed sufficient
and the rocket engine option was cancelled in 1958.
The ventral store saw wide use as an extra fuel tank, initially this
was jettisonable and held 250 gal (247 gal usable, 1,120 l). Later ventral tanks were non-jettisonable.Despite its acceleration, altitude and top speed, the Lightning found
itself outclassed by newer fighters in terms of radar, avionics,
weapons load, range, and air-to-air capability. More of a problem was
the obsolete avionics and weapons fit. The radar had a short range and
no track-while scan capability; it could only detect targets in a fairly
narrow (40 degree) arc. While an automatic collision course attack
system was developed and successfully demonstrated by English Electric,
it was not adopted owing to cost concerns. Plans to supplement or replace the obsolete Red Top and Firestreak missiles with modern AIM-9L Sidewinder missiles never came to fruition because of lack of funding,

Friday, March 9, 2018

Here are some images Monogram's 1/48 scale Convair B-58 Hustler.
I built this model several years ago. Back in the day when I didn't know anything about panel shading. Still looks good despite that.

From Wikipedia"The Convair B-58 Hustler was the first operational jet bomber capable of Mach 2 flight. The aircraft was designed by Convair engineer Robert H. Widmer and developed for the United States Air Force for service in the Strategic Air Command (SAC) during the 1960s. It used a delta wing, which was also employed by Convair fighters such as the F-102, with four General Electric J79
engines in underwing pods. It carried five nuclear weapons; four on
pylons under the wings, and one nuclear weapon and fuel in a combination
bomb/fuel pod under the fuselage, rather than in an internal bomb bay.Replacing the Boeing B-47 Stratojet
medium bomber, it was originally intended to fly at high altitudes and
supersonic speeds to avoid Soviet fighters. The B-58 was notorious for
its sonic boom, which was often heard by the public as it passed overhead in supersonic flight.The introduction of highly-accurate Soviet surface-to-air missiles
forced the B-58 into a low-level-penetration role that severely limited
its range and strategic value, and it was never employed to deliver
conventional bombs. This resulted in only a brief operational career
between 1960 and 1970 when the B-58 was succeeded by the smaller,
swing-wing FB-111A.

The genesis of the B-58 program came in February 1949, when a
Generalized Bomber Study (GEBO II) had been issued by the Air Research
and Development Command (ARDC) at Wright-Patterson AFB,
Ohio, for the development of a supersonic, long range, bombardment
aviation platform. The proposed bomber's design and development was to
begin less than two years after sustained supersonic flight had
successfully been achieved.
A number of contractors submitted bids to perform the generalized study
(that hopefully would lead to a development contract) including Boeing, Convair, Curtiss, Douglas, Martin and North American Aviation.Convair, building on its experience in earlier delta-wing fighters, beginning with the XF-92A,
a series of GEBO II designs were developed, initially studying swept
and semi-delta configurations, but settling on the delta wing planform.
The delta planform had good internal volume for support systems and
fuel. It also had low wing loading (for airframe size), thus permitting
supersonic flight in the mid-stratosphere (50 – 70,000 feet). The final
Convair proposal, coded FZP-110, was a radical two-place, delta
wing bomber design powered by General Electric J53 engines. The
performance estimates included a 1,000 mph (1,600 km/h; 870 kt) speed
and a 3,000 statute mile (4,800 km; 2,600 nmi) range.

RB-58A with two component pod (TCP)

The USAF chose Boeing (MX-1712) and Convair to proceed to a Phase 1 study. The Convair MX-1626 evolved into a more refined proposal redesignated the MX-1964. In December 1952, the Air Force selected the MX-1964 as the winner of the design competition
to meet the newly proposed SAB-51 (Supersonic Aircraft Bomber) and
SAR-51 (Supersonic Aircraft Reconnaissance), the first General
Operational Requirement (GOR) worldwide for supersonic bombers. In
February 1953, the Air Force issued a contract for development of
Convair's design.The resulting B-58 design was the first "true" USAF supersonic bomber program. The Convair design was based on a delta wing with a leading-edge sweep of 60° with four General Electric J79-GE-1turbojet engines, capable of flying at Mach 2. Although its large wing made for relatively low wing loading,
it proved to be surprisingly well suited for low-altitude, high-speed
flight. It seated three (pilot, bombardier/navigator, and defensive
systems operator) in separated tandem cockpits. Later versions gave each
crew member a novel ejection capsule that made it possible to eject at an altitude of 70,000 ft (21,000 m) at speeds up to Mach 2 (1,320 mph/2,450 km/h). Unlike standard ejection seats
of the period, a protective clamshell would enclose the seat and the
control stick with an attached oxygen cylinder, allowing the pilot to
continue to fly even "turtled up" and ready for immediate egress. The
capsule was buoyant; the crewmember could open the clamshell, and use it
as a life raft. In an unusual test program, live bears and chimpanzees were successfully used to test the ejection system. The XB-70 would use a similar system (though using capsules of a different design).

Thursday, March 8, 2018

Here are some images of Amati's 1/16 scale New Bedford Whaleboat 1860.
I realize I've posted images of this model awhile back but this time around I've decided to take images of it with a dark background as opposed to the usual white. You can see them here.
The background is just a black cardstock. You remember the type of paper you used in school art class? Same stuff.
I know I've done images with black backgrounds before but in those cases I hung dark cloth in the background at a few feet from the model. A more difficult process and no background texture. Trying new things.

Sunday, March 4, 2018

The Fw 190F configuration was originally tested in a Fw 190 A-0/U4,
starting in May 1942. The A-0 testbed aircraft was outfitted with
centreline and wing-mounted bomb racks. The early testing results were
quite good, and Focke-Wulf began engineering the attack
version of the Fw 190. New armor was added to the bottom of the
fuselage, protecting the fuel tanks and pilot, the engine cowling, and
the landing gear mechanisms and outer wing mounted armament. This attack
configuration with additional armor and an ETC 501 centreline bombrack
was officially designated Umrüst-Bausatz kit 3 (abbreviated as /U3). It was first used on the A-4, the 18 known A-4/U3 were later redesignated Fw 190 F-1. The Fw 190 F-2s
were renamed Fw 190 A-5/U3s, of which 270 were built according to
Focke-Wulf production logs and Ministry of Aviation acceptance reports.The Fw 190 F-3 was based on the Fw 190 A-5/U17, which was
outfitted with a centreline mounted ETC 501 bomb rack, and in the Fw 190
F-3/R1, with two ETC 50 bomb racks under each wing. The F-3 could carry
an 80 US gal (300 liter) standard Luftwaffe drop tank. A total of 432
Fw 190 F-3s were built.The Fw 190 F-4 to F-7 designations were used for some projects, two
of them made it into production and were renamed into F-8/F-9 to unify
the subversion with the A-series airframe they were based on.The Fw 190 F-8 differed from the A-8 model in having a
slightly modified injector on the compressor which allowed for increased
performance at lower altitudes for several minutes. The F-8 was also
fitted with the improved FuG 16 ZS radio unit, which provided much
better communication with ground combat units. Armament of the Fw 190
F-8 was two 20 mm MG 151/20 cannon in the wing roots and two 13 mm
(.51 in) MG 131 machine guns above the engine. In the Fw 190 F-8/R1 two
ETC 50 bombracks were installed under each wing, capable of holding a
50 kg bombs. In 1945 the ETC 50 was replaced with the ETC 70, capable of
holding 70 kg bombs. According to Ministry of Aviation acceptance
reports, at least 3,400 F-8s were built, and probably several hundred
more were built in December 1944 and from February to May 1945. (Data
for these months is missing and probably lost.)
Dozens of F-8s served as various testbeds for anti-tank armament,
including the WGr.28 280 mm air-to-ground missile, probably based on the
projectiles from the Nbw 41 heavy ground-barrage rocket system, and the 88 mm (3.46 in) Panzerschreck 2 rockets, Panzerblitz 1 and R4M rockets.There were also several Umrüst-Bausätze kits developed for the F-8, which included the Fw 190 F-8/U1
long range JaBo, fitted with underwing V.Mtt-Schloß shackles to hold
two 300 L (80 US gal) fuel tanks. ETC 503 bomb racks were also fitted,
allowing the Fw 190 F-8/U1 to carry one SC 250 bomb under each wing and
one SC 250 bomb on the centreline.The Fw 190 F-8/U2 torpedo bomber was fitted with an ETC 503
bomb rack under each wing and a centre-line mounted ETC 504. The U2 was
also equipped with the TSA 2 A weapons sighting system that improved the
U2's ability to attack seaborne targets with a 1,543 lb (700 kg) BT
700.The Fw 190 F-8/U3 heavy torpedo bomber was outfitted with an
ETC 502, which allowed it to carry one BT-1400 heavy torpedo
(3,086 lb/1400 kg). Owing to the size of the torpedo, the U3's tail gear
needed to be lengthened. The U3 also was fitted with the 2,000 PS BMW
801S engine, and the broader-chord vertical tail from the Ta 152.The Fw 190 F-8/U4, created as a night fighter, was equipped
with flame dampers on the exhaust and various electrical systems such as
the FuG 101 radio altimeter, the PKS 12 automatic pilot, and the TSA 2 A
sighting system. Weapons fitted ranged from torpedoes to bombs; however, the U4 was fitted with only two MG 151/20 cannon as fixed armament.
The Fw 190 F-9 was based on the Fw 190 A-9, but with the new
Ta 152 tail unit, a new bulged canopy as fitted to late-build A-9s, and
four ETC 50 or ETC 70 bomb racks under the wings. According to Ministry
of Aviation acceptance reports, 147 F-9s were built in January 1945, and
perhaps several hundred more from February to May 1945. (Data for these
months is missing and probably lost.)